COLUMBIA, Mo 7/28/14 (Beat Byte) -- The family of Wal-Mart heiress Paige Laurie -- best known for a college cheating scandal that cost her naming rights to the Mizzou basketball arena -- owns most of the vacant land around the Boone County Fairgrounds, aka the Central Missouri Events Center.

The Laurie family's ownership of the roughly 276 acres may explain the urgency of a six-year, $12-18 million salestax to support the Fairgrounds known as Proposition Epic.

Taxpayer-funded development anchors accomplish three important goals: dramatically increase the value of once-vacant farmland; lure homebuyers; and provide critical infrastructure such as streets, sewers, and sidewalks. Developers also use taxpayer-funded anchors as levers to force city annexation of county property. Annexation provides numerous city amenities.

They transferred Tuscany Ridge and the Fairgrounds-area acreage to a subsidiary of Paige Sports Entertainment, North Boone County Properties, LLC. The acreage includes at least six large lots ranging from 20-50 acres each on Waco Road, Oakland Gravel Rd., and Brown Station Rd.; and about 64 smaller lots throughout Tuscany Ridge on streets with names that remind of Italy such as Napoli, Venice, and Gondola.

Anchors Away!

Only people and companies with significant political power can play the development anchor game, which a retired CoMo developer explained to this publication.

Next, use political muscle to push Columbia Public Schools into constructing a nearby school; the city of Columbia into constructing a nearby park; and now, it seems, Boone County into a $12-18 million "do-over" of the Fairgrounds.

With each new taxpayer-funded anchor comes equally important taxpayer-funded infrastructure. A school in the boondocks, for instance, needs sewers, sidewalks, streets, lights, and so forth, all readily accessible to the subdivision going up next door. Pressure also mounts for Columbia to annex the land.

In short order, the politically-connected developer transforms a vacant parcel worth a few thousand dollars per acre into a valuable capital assetworth tens or hundreds of thousands per acre, and with no need for market forces. Taxpayers and utility rate payers have footed the bill.

If Proposition Epic passes August 5th, the next question may be: Does the Central Missouri Events Center become the Paige Laurie Events Center? Should the Boone County Fairgrounds be renamed the Paige Laurie Playgrounds?